The Removal

Maura and I went to a removal the other evening. It wasn't a house removal, it was the removal of a corpse, one of Maura's cousins, from the funeral home to the church. We did not start at the funeral home, as many would have done, constituting a long procession across country from Kilcock to Moynalvey in Meath. We were late, trying to locate a place which had taken the Internet's resources to locate, and at last we were looking for the final turn, after the Hatchet public house, and the Gaelic football field, when we saw a Guarda car parked by the side of the road. Of course! Brian was a Guarda Siochana!
"We are late for Brian O'Sullivan's removal, can you help?"
"Sure, that's why we're here. Take this turn for half a mile."
A quarter of a mile, and the cars were littered all over the place, and scores of people were just standing by the road, waiting for the hearse to arrive so that they might fall in behind it.
More Guarda, frowning this time, implying, "You don't expect to park here?"
"I have an elderly lady with me, I need invalid parking."
"Sneak in there to the left, sir."
Right beside the church, a beautiful little, cut-stone country church in the middle of nowhere, which would have to have been three or four times as big to house everyone, so I stood outside, and listened to the prayers on loudspeakers, while Peggy and Maura wheedled their way inside.
Then we all jostled our way inside, as those inside left, after filing past the mourning family, and expressing their condolences, so that we, in turn could express our sorrow for the family's loss.
Later Maura told me another cousin asked her to apologise to me because she had not acknowledged my presence personally. There is a hierarchy at Irish funerals: the older you are the more reverent people are to you.